The always edgy, always inventive Shockboxx Gallery may have electrified its last exhibition a few months ago, but Not Shockboxx is alive and well, with its first exhibition by realist/surrealist (yes, the two can be one) artist James Frost bringing in robust crowds and welcome red dots.
Frost’s Don’t F&$%( ING Touch Me is a true tour de force. The artist describes the show as “everything I like” which apparently includes wolves and alien spacecraft, curled up cats beneath other spaceships, Barbara Eden, the Dali Llama, angel fish, lonely landscapes, music heroes, art gurus, and so much more.
His art is the boy screaming against the clamor of the city; the young man surrounded by a colorful aura.
The realism, the heightened use of color, the pop sensibility, the touches of the surreal – Frost’s art is entirely his, entirely wild, and entirely involving, as hyperrealistic as it is dusted with the surreal and serene. It jumps off the wall and engages the viewer with Frost’s mastery of craft, and the dare-I-say zany aspect of some of his subjects. This is pop culture sublime, smooth and sensual, vividly at high volume, if art could shout.
Its boldness to some extent contrasts with Frost’s own quiet, from sound muffling head phones (the artist speaks of being on the spectrum) to conversing through sign language skills.
Above, a detail from Interstellar, a personal favorite, with the absolutely perfect kitty under the beam-me-up spaceship.
His art, in other words, truly does speak for him and vibrates with both fantasy and the fantastical, threaded together with the artist’s own quiet spirit.
Frost says of his work “Every ounce of peace that comes to me comes from painting, so my hope is that you. get that magic I’d been missing for far too long.”
Indeed, to see it is to feel it. Go see the magic through September 20th. It’s extremely cool work.
Not Shockboxx is open daily 10 to 4 p.m. and is lcoated at 636 Cypress in Hermosa Beach.
- Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis